Having plied the Rent Guidelines Board with information, chants, signs, and a rally, tenants won a partial victory with the lowest stabilized rent increases in many years.

If your lease renewal goes into effect any time from October 1, 2012 through September 30, 2013, you must pay an increase based on the June 21, 2012 RGB order. How much of an increase depends on what the current rent is.

If your current rent is $1000 or more, you will pay 2% increase for a 1-year lease renewal4% increase for a 2-year lease renewal.But if your current rent is less than $1000, you will pay $20 increase for a 1-year lease renewal$40 increase for a 2-year lease renewal.The Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) has imposed this "poor tax" so that tenants whose rents are below $1000 - usually older tenants who've been in their homes longer will pay higher increases.

Call Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver today: Don't renew J-51 without tenant protections! Tell his aide that you're part of the Real Rent Reform Campaign - or one of its member organizations.

518-455-3791 or 212-312-1420Landlords desperately want renewal of J-51, a tax break they get for making major building repairs. But they want it renewed without tenant protections - and tenants need more protection, not less.

The State Assembly is voting on a package of rent regulation bills that include many of those in R3's legislative proposal. 2012 Rent Regulation PackageLandlord Hardship Rent IncreaseA2881 (RR 78) KavanaghSame as S1298 DuaneExtends from 3 to 6 years the time a building must be owned in order to qualify for an alternative hardship exemption from rent regulation

Landlord UseA3033(RR 44) V LopezSame as S81 Squadron Limits a landlord's ability to take possession of units for their own primary residence to cases of immediate and compelling necessity, permit recovery of only one unit, and restrict such ability if the tenant has occupied the apartment for twenty or more years

MCI cappedA2459-A(Cal 445) O’DonnellSame as S523a Krueger, L.Codifies the MCI (major capital improvement) as a surcharge to the legal regulated rent which is separately designated and billed as such, and mandates that the authorized surcharge for MCI's ceases after the cost of the improvement is recouped

Rent Guidelines Board hearings There are 2 hearings left and then the final vote and tenant rally. TESTIFY!*Wed., June 13 at 4 PM atRepertory Theatre of HostosCommunity College/CUNY450 Grand ConcourseBronx, NY 10451

Last year, our rent laws were renewed and even strengthened, but we are still facing unfair rent increases and displacement pressures. Many landlords are using every loophole available to raise our rents and it’s time to say, “enough!” As a community, as a borough, as a city, and as a state, we are coming together to say we need stronger rent laws NOW!

This press conference is being sponsored by the Pratt Area CommunityCouncil, Make the Road New York, the Association for Neighborhood andHousing Development, New York Communities for Change and Tenants &Neighbors.

Tenants suffer when rent regulations are not enforced. Two hundred tenants at 2400 Webb Avenue - a rent-regulated building - were forced to relocate when their landlord had the fire escapes removed to repair brickwork.

Tenant protections must be stronger - both written into the law in Albany and in enforcement by the City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (one of whose inspectors approved removal of the fire escapes - in the absence of any other fire protection); and the State's Housing Community Renewal. One R3 organization, Tenants & Neighbors, is working to get our laws enforced. Print out and sign one of their postcards to Governor Cuomo to beef up the enforcement unit.

J-51 is a tax benefit program for owners making major repairs to their buildings. Owners get these tax breaks for a period of years - during which tenants become rent regulated, and those who are already regulated must remain so. The J-51 program was intended to help the residents and owners of poorer buildings make these crucial repairs.That's the good news.

But landlords want the bill renewed without strengthening the rent laws, and with a provision that would let them pay back the tax benefits in exchange for being able to de-regulate apartments (ousting the tenants who happen to live in them). And the City is losing millions of dollars in tax revenue.

There was an overflow crowd at the June 7th Tenant Town Hall. Tenants from the Lower East Side, Washington Heights, the Bronx, the West Side, and even the Upper East Side of Manhattan perched on the stairs and in the balcony of the auditorium once the seats filled, and then filled Hartley Hall's backyard, listening from a speaker rigged up as the crowd grew.